Retirement

[BlackHillsPaul]

My wife and I both retired about 6 years ago at age 55. I spent my career underwriting farm/ranch insurance. Working from my house and spending most of my time in the field. We also owned several commercial properties that we had invested in. Last year we sold all of that and moved to Arizona. Built a new house. Just waiting for our pool to be installed now.

[Chilli D]

I'm a Quality Engineer for an Aerospace company just outside Cambridge. We make interiors for commercial aircraft, mainly wide bodied planes.
I'd love to be in a position to retire but that isn't going to happen until I reach state pension age so I have 8 years to go.

[AcrossThePondAsh]

My wife and I both retired about 6 years ago at age 55. I spent my career underwriting farm/ranch insurance. Working from my house and spending most of my time in the field. We also owned several commercial properties that we had invested in. Last year we sold all of that and moved to Arizona. Built a new house. Just waiting for our pool to be installed now.

What I'm hearing, Paul, is an invitation for a Leeds promotion pool party

[GreennWhite]

I was a machinery Engineer and retired just over 2 years ago, will be 64 in April. I have to say im really enjoying retirement. But it all comes down to the individual. I know some friends who retired and found it hard, they needed to be doing something every minute of every day, whilst others enjoy doing very little each day. Getting that balance right for the individual is the key. There is certainly nothing wrong in having the odd quite day here and there, but for me i like to be pottering about at something now and again.
Travelling is my big passion, i spent all most 3 months on a road trip across America within 2 months of retiring, lol and I'm about to head off next week for a month to visit Dubai, Vietnam and then Thailand
Life is too short, my advise is to retire as soon as you can do it, but i realise that's always easy for some folks.

[1964white]

54 years working, 50 years in managerial/self-employed positions, done my bit, time to call it a day in June.

Sadly, some people never work, (rich & poor)

[mentalcase]

What I'm hearing, Paul, is an invitation for a Leeds promotion pool party

Thats how I read it as well.
Looking at flights already

[Overman]

I intend to work for as long as I can. I enjoy what I do and it's not physically exerting. I've lived a pretty full live thus far moving around a fair bit. My new venture will soon entail moving to Egypt for a while.

[whiteswan]

I worked as a dental surgery assistant until I was 37. I worked the last 12 of those years in the middle east which allowed me to save quite a bit. I was also lucky enough to meet my other half out there who was on a 3 year secondment from BT. We came back to England and bought our cottage ( in 1992 ) which we still live in. I packed in the dentistry straight away and worked a bit for friends in their pub and a friend who ran a sail making business a couple of days a week.

Mr Swan kept on at BT in Ipswich and became chief tester for Broadband. He spent 35 years at BT but by the 30th year we'd started our tree surgery business working on days he wasn't at BT. We decided that he wouid take voluntary redundancy and continue the tree business full time as it was also his hobby. It worked out very well until......2 years ago

One morning his leg felt weird, and by 8.00 at night he was paralysed from the waist down. No warning, no cause. He spent 10 days in hospital, had 2 brain scans, lumbar puncture, nerve tests, back scan....nothing. No diagnosis. He learned to walk again with a frame, then a walking stick and can now walk freely unaided but his legs and feet are still weird, some numbness and some pain but obviously the tree surgery had to be given up. This was at 60 years old. He'd always said he would retire at 60 but he wasn't quite ready to give it up as be enjoyed it so much.
I guess I've posted this to say that anything can just happen at anytime, out of the blue. So, if you want to retire (important) and you can afford it (important) then do so.

[AcrossThePondAsh]

I worked as a dental surgery assistant until I was 37. I worked the last 12 of those years in the middle east which allowed me to save quite a bit. I was also lucky enough to meet my other half out there who was on a 3 year secondment from BT. We came back to England and bought our cottage ( in 1992 ) which we still live in. I packed in the dentistry straight away and worked a bit for friends in their pub and a friend who ran a sail making business a couple of days a week.

Mr Swan kept on at BT in Ipswich and became chief tester for Broadband. He spent 35 years at BT but by the 30th year we'd started our tree surgery business working on days he wasn't at BT. We decided that he wouid take voluntary redundancy and continue the tree business full time as it was also his hobby. It worked out very well until......2 years ago

One morning his leg felt weird, and by 8.00 at night he was paralysed from the waist down. No warning, no cause. He spent 10 days in hospital, had 2 brain scans, lumbar puncture, nerve tests, back scan....nothing. No diagnosis. He learned to walk again with a frame, then a walking stick and can now walk freely unaided but his legs and feet are still weird, some numbness and some pain but obviously the tree surgery had to be given up. This was at 60 years old. He'd always said he would retire at 60 but he wasn't quite ready to give it up as be enjoyed it so much.
I guess I've posted this to say that anything can just happen at anytime, out of the blue. So, if you want to retire (important) and you can afford it (important) then do so.

...and to this day, still no idea what caused it, Swannie? Wow Talk about scary!

Definitely agree with this last bit. Good advice

[ShaunL]

I turn 60 in July and was seriously contemplating retirement.I have no debt & worked the same job for 35 years.
Then Alcoa announced the closure of the Kwinana alumina refinery. This made up my mind for me.
But our EBA says we get an uncapped redundancy & for 35 plus years service I will receive about 120 week payout.
Could not have come at a better time for me & many others.
I’m going to buy a tinnie (small aluminium boat) new car and go travelling.
I will obviously go fishing & play lawn bowls twice a week. As well as visiting many drinking outlets.
Then

[Baldbloke]

Joined the military at 16, left at 40 but rejoined 3 months later just doing security/ guard force for the MOD. Pulling the plug on that soon as I'm 56 and can't handle night shifts any more. Get a decent pension already from my service which goes up every year and will get another to add it once I leave again.
Looking at working with Special Educational Needs/vulnerable kids which I do voluntarily already and let me tell you there's so many children who need help it's frightening. So many of these kids go under the radar and to be honest their parents don't care, some of them honestly believe it's a school and state responsibility to bring their kids up.
Plan on doing that to 67 then retiring full time, but need to keep busy as I've seen so many old military friends retire and its like they lose all purpose in life and just fade away.

[Chilli D]

I worked as a dental surgery assistant until I was 37. I worked the last 12 of those years in the middle east which allowed me to save quite a bit. I was also lucky enough to meet my other half out there who was on a 3 year secondment from BT. We came back to England and bought our cottage ( in 1992 ) which we still live in. I packed in the dentistry straight away and worked a bit for friends in their pub and a friend who ran a sail making business a couple of days a week.

Mr Swan kept on at BT in Ipswich and became chief tester for Broadband. He spent 35 years at BT but by the 30th year we'd started our tree surgery business working on days he wasn't at BT. We decided that he wouid take voluntary redundancy and continue the tree business full time as it was also his hobby. It worked out very well until......2 years ago

One morning his leg felt weird, and by 8.00 at night he was paralysed from the waist down. No warning, no cause. He spent 10 days in hospital, had 2 brain scans, lumbar puncture, nerve tests, back scan....nothing. No diagnosis. He learned to walk again with a frame, then a walking stick and can now walk freely unaided but his legs and feet are still weird, some numbness and some pain but obviously the tree surgery had to be given up. This was at 60 years old. He'd always said he would retire at 60 but he wasn't quite ready to give it up as be enjoyed it so much.
I guess I've posted this to say that anything can just happen at anytime, out of the blue. So, if you want to retire (important) and you can afford it (important) then do so.

Jesus H Christ Swannie that must have been scary for both of you.
I had no idea.
Glad to hear he made a recovery of sorts although not complete.

[Johnthewhite]

I’ve mentioned before elsewhere, my wife got very poorly in 2009, was in hospital for one and a half years, on a life support machine for weeks on end, in a coma for several weeks more. The illness was caused through problems with pregnancy and we lost our baby daughter, it completely changed my outlook on life.

As I say, I’d always planned to retire at 50, when I started working at 17. When I was 45, I got gifted some shares when our company was sold on the guarantee that I stayed for 5 years (obviously fitted in perfectly with my goal of retiring at 50). Bizarrely, the new company (who bought us) got sold themselves 6 months later, so I got my share money four and a half years early.

I took the opportunity to retire and I’ve never regretted it since.

So sorry to hear what you and the Mrs have been through, cannot even imagine the pain of your loss. I do hope your wife is now well and you continue to enjoy your retirement together.

[hector]

I intend to work for as long as I can. I enjoy what I do and it's not physically exerting. I've lived a pretty full live thus far moving around a fair bit. My new venture will soon entail moving to Egypt for a while.

Be very careful and make sure you get a work permit..

I moved to Egypt a few years ago, I was cleaning the carpets on Nile Cruise ships.....

One day my machine was confiscated, and I was escorted home to pack and then to the airport... All at gunpoint..
I didn't have a work permit, as I was told we didn't need one...

[Jimstorrie]

I retired at 57 a little over 12 years ago.
This was after exactly 40 years office bound in insurance, and coincided within days with paying off my (small) mortgage and also visiting my 2000th football ground.
Three redundancies, two generous,helped.
The last couple of years I worked three days a week which eased me into retirement. I sincerely haven't missed work for a second.
If it's financially possible then do it and keep active at your own pace. Playing golf and many more football matches do the trick in my case.

[DDB220]

It seems to all boil down to having passionate interests outside of work to keep you occupied.

For someone like me who gets easily bored with pleasure pursuits because I am ultra competitive it didn’t work out. Playing golf everyday and coached by a pro once per week I expected to progress beyond my 8 handicap but I had plateaued and lost interest. I am not great at doing anything just for fun or the pleasure of it. Fortunately I didn’t have competitive Dad syndrome with my kids.
I am starting to mellow now as I accept my body is starting to show signs of age. However - when I go for a run it doesn’t stop me getting into a race with someone twice as young as me.
I did archery for quite a few years competitively- I may go back to that when I retire. But just for fun I keep trying to tell myself.

[1964white]

I intend to work for as long as I can. I enjoy what I do and it's not physically exerting. I've lived a pretty full live thus far moving around a fair bit. My new venture will soon entail moving to Egypt for a while.

Keep going for as long as you can, has always been my stance.

New venture sounds exciting,

[Barlow Boy]

A very traumatic time for you and so sad to read too. Well done for taking the opportunity and glad something good did come out of it all.

Thanks Heidi

[BobHirst]

I was a computer analyst and programmer forever. I used to love it but during the last few years I couldn't wait until I retired. The industry completely changed and the emphasis changed from having smart, knowledgeable experts into a process driven "anyone can do it" philosophy. Having to go to India to teach them how to do our jobs and then seeing most of my friends and colleges being "let go" didn't help either. I retired in 2017 and I can honestly say I have not missed work even a little bit. I'm not one of those people who has to be doing stuff all the time so I just potter around and when Mrs Bob says something needs doing I'll work on it for a couple of hours and then tell her I'll continue tomorrow, which I do. There's no rush, there's always tomorrow. "Don't worry, Be Happy".
We have travelled quite a bit and now that I am writing down where we've been, I guess we've done quite a lot of travelling. Since retiring we have been to Italy, Kenya, Netherlands, France. Spain, Portugal, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Australia, New Zealand, Caribbean Islands, Slovakia, Austria, Bosnia, Slovenia, Hawaii, Hungry, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Greece, and Morocco. Plus we have toured in the USA and done some cruises including longer trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic cruises.
Should you retire? Hell yes!

[Barlow Boy]

Wow, terrible times BB, you mentioned your daughter on one of Heidi’s posts but didn’t know the story, puts things in perspective. Hope your wife is ok now

Thanks mate, horrific time.

I had to go into the theatre to say my goodbyes to my wife at one point, thankfully, she survived but is permanently disabled.

Not complaining though, we have a good life and there is always someone worse off than me/us/you.